


The Last Emperor

by elDiablito



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Blood and Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, Parent Death, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-10 15:24:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12914727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elDiablito/pseuds/elDiablito
Summary: Decades have passed since the success of the Voltron Coalition, Emperor Zarkon's defeat, and Prince Lotor's subsequent rise to the throne. Cowed by intergalactic accords and tenuously allied with both Voltron and the Blade of Marmora, the Galra Empire must reform their civilization for peace or else face annihilation. As threats on all fronts attempt to destroy the vestiges of the Empire, the task of salvaging a culture 10,000 years corrupted--while also holding together the fraying ties of his own family--falls to an idealistic and uncompromising young diplomat: Emperor Lotor's son.





	1. Circles

 

 

 

 

> _What is the holiness of empire?_
> 
> _It is to know collapse._
> 
> \--Anne Carson, “The Fall of Rome: A Traveller's Guide" 

  
  
  


 

The sunlight catches on the celestial edge of my father’s gold earring as he paces, forth and back, before the bay window. He’s just been told he’s dying, and I can only sit silently in the plush cup of a chair while watching him slowly unravel.

 

As I cross and uncross my legs, waiting for him to say something, the crunch of glass startles me. My father has clenched the drink in his hand, glass shattering in his palm, and from his fist dark green liquid drips like a strangled heart.

 

His shoulders are heaving, his jaw tense and trembling. I know his anger; this isn’t it. His anger is cool and violent, cunning. His anger has moved men to reverence as much as it has isolated him. If I were a child again, I’d run up and take his hand and kiss him because I know--as sea creatures know their paths of migration through warm, labyrinthine currents--the nature of my father’s fear.

 

“ _Vatra_?” I test.

 

He stills. He takes a deep, hissing breath and turns to me, running a hand over his shorn pale hair. He forgets, sometimes, that its lengths are gone although he’s kept it short since I was a child. Since the funeral. Confusion passes over his face like an insect obscuring lamplight. Others--soldiers and politicians and friends--don’t see these moments, the minutiae of discordances that flicker through the man they call “Emperor.” It hurts, inexplicably, to consider this.

 

“Forgive me, Ira,” he says, walking to join me in the adjacent chair. Glass falls to the floor in a delicate, chiming shower as his fingers unfurl.

 

When he sits, elbow on the armrest, he pinches the bridge of his nose with his clean hand and works to steady his breathing. He looks up after a moment, begins plucking crystal shards from the meat of his palm, and nods toward the mess on the floor.

 

“You should clean that up, darling.”

 

A sigh escapes me before I can help it, and he cuts me a sly grin. The scar that bisects his lips at a diagonal smiles with him in duplicate insult. My instinct is to tell him to go fuck himself, as is our typical way of affection, but the depth of indigo beneath his eyes and the sharpness of his cheek bones stop me. He’s dying, and I hate that this fact moves me to gentleness.

 

I should not be so sentimental. Like a mountain range made elegant and essential by the sculpting violence of wind, my father’s entire life has been characterized by proximity to death. But this is a different death. I know he must not be afraid of dying in itself, but the thought of slow decay rather than a proper warrior’s end--as he has prepared for since childhood--makes him pale. The illness is terminal and aggressive, his physician told us: a gradual failing of the nervous system, which eats away at the reflexes and muscle control like fire to oiled cord. Deterioration of memory is imminent; heart failure is the final blow.

 

“What now?” I say.

 

He runs his tongue over a long white canine then says, “We wait.”

 

“That’s awfully passive for you.”

 

“Would you rather I throw a fit?”

 

“Oh, so your drink was just thatbad.”

 

He slides his gaze over, unamused. “What should I do, then, Vice Minister?”

 

Acid drips thick from those final syllables, and it astonishes me that even in this moment of vulnerability he has the energy and mind to be petty. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of my frustration, so I persist.   

 

“We could look properly into treatments.”

 

“And delay the inevitable.”

 

“It may give you more time than you think.”

 

“Yes,” he says, rolling his eyes toward the vaulted ceiling. “I am sure I could live long enough to become incontinent and then you could spend your visits home wiping my ass for me.”

 

“Do you not want to fight this?”

 

“I never take a fight I know I will not win.”

 

Bullshit. “I don’t think you have a choice.”

 

Dropping his gaze back to me, he straightens up in the chair. “I will not forfeit my dignity for time.”

 

“Why not kill yourself, then?”

 

He doesn’t respond.

 

“You’ve already considered it,” I say, my voice weaker now than I want it to be, a dampening of the sudden spark.

 

He rolls his head on his neck, working out some knot of stress clenching in his shoulders, and his earrings swing, casting faint shadows of light across his throat. I lean forward in my chair, elbows on my knees, and look up at him, direct so he can’t avoid my gaze.

 

I want to say: _I can’t lose you, too. Don’t leave me willingly._

 

What I say: “You’re being irrational out of fear.”

 

He levels a glare at me. “I’m glad you think you know me so well.”

 

 _I know you better than anyone._ “I’m just trying to help you reorient.”

 

“Precious,” he says, reaching over to pat my hand with calloused fingers. The brushed gold band ever-fixed around his wrist slips over my skin, electric cold. He rises from the chair.

 

So far, little has changed in his movements in spite of the illness, and the lasting strength of his body from decaphoebes of combat disguises any signs of tremors or awkwardness in his gait.

 

It was the shortness of breath, an inconvenience more than hindrance during a recent series of diplomatic meetings, that brought him to this distant moon for rest and examination. He’d been characteristically belligerent about taking leave of the new Daibazaal stronghold to convalesce. After succumbing to a violent coughing fit during his regular workout on the palace’s training deck, however, he agreed to visit Xoterion on the stipulation that our preparations for the looming Arusian Summit would continue uninterrupted.

 

When we arrived, the sheer black mountains were subsumed by fog, the sea gray and restless below the plain. When we arrived, neither of us had bargained for his death sentence.

 

I sit back in my chair as he takes up a throw blanket from the sofa, dropping it on the floor to haphazardly mop the mess with his boot.

 

“You don’t have to handle this alone,” I say, a final olive branch.

 

After a moment he stills with his boot on the mound of cloth and glass and liquor, stands suspended in time with a corona of pale sunlight effusing from his hard silhouette.

 

“Ira,” he says, without turning to me. “I love you. I do. But I do not want your help.”

 

Suddenly, I’m an adolescent again, a volatile star imploding under the weight of my own indignation, but I measure myself. I've learned that most battles between my father’s ego and my own are losing ones. I stand, smooth out my coat.

 

“We have a dinner this evening, if you recall. Should I relay your absence to Allura and the others?”

 

He says, “Do you not understand when you have been dismissed?”

 

Taking a moment to breathe, I swallow my pride and bile at his condescension. It hasn’t always been this way between us; my father loves me, has always loved me.

 

 _I love you_. _I do._

 

His voice climbs up the back of my skull, swirls then dissipates like steam. 

 

With a bow more reflex than respect, I say, “Acknowledged, My Lord.”

 

 


	2. Threshold

My earliest memories are of the sea.

 

Tiny fingers dragging motes of cold, green water through wet sand.

 

Body oils tinting the wind with the perfume of amber and honey.

 

A hundred-legged sea star sparkling in the bowl of two large hands--one calloused and clawed, the other crafted from black metal.

 

These were the hands that held me upside down and giggling over the bright sand, the hands that brushed wild white curls behind the lavender ear of his lover. He moves through those early years as a great shadow, dissolving when looked at too closely. In reality, he was with us on Xoterion for only a few quintants at a time before duty’s firm grip pulled him away.

 

In one memory, they embrace on the veranda, just within the shadow of the house and backdropped by the distant shore and a blushing sky. They whisper to each other. He leans in to nestle his cheek against my father’s temple, and my father’s hands clutch at the collar of his uniform in a white-knuckled plea: _Don’t go_.

 

With heads bowed together in the half-light of morning, their image resonates a finality that perhaps only retrospect makes clear, or real.

 

His departure at dawn would not be the last I saw of him, but for a time, then, we were only two: Lotor and Ira. Ours was a simple symmetry, a methodical study of each other’s bodies and behaviors as I grew and my father loved me simply for being.

 

By the end of my fourth decaphoeb, I had forgotten about the other man on the threshold. Lotor, however, had not.

 

Curled up on a blanket in the red shade of a great paper umbrella, a bee resting in the heart of a flower, I watched my father toe toward the water. As he stepped into the frothing edge of the surf, the water splashed up his bare legs like adorers worshipping at the feet of their god, and standing there, naked beneath the sun with his skin glistening and flushed rich purple from the heat, he appeared more god than man. Loose white curls blew around his shoulders in the breeze as he turned to look for me up on the shore. Satisfied that I had not disappeared, he bent to splash his hands in the green shallows. His hair poured over him like milk.

 

Then came the sound of footfalls through sand. I sat up on my knees to peek out from the shell of the umbrella. One of my father’s generals marched down through the tall grass, the jewel tones of her uniform stark against the pale seaside backdrop. It was Ezor, for Acxa, his first in command at the time, was still away on a mission. When he saw Ezor’s slender, kaleidoscope figure waiting on the sand, my father straightened, waist-deep in the water. For a moment he was still. I peered through the white sunlight--harsh for our kind’s eyes--to watch them. A shadow passed over the sand.

 

When my father emerged from the water, Ezor bowed her head to avert her eyes, as though prescribing to the belief that gazing upon the face of a god will cause blindness. Still silent, he stood before her, a man made of gemstone, scarred but gleaming. She proffered a small black handheld with a screen of translucent pink glass, and though he hesitated, he took the device and swiped his fingers across its surface to unlock the message. Ezor saluted him with a fist over her heart and turned on her boot heels to ascend the rocky shoreline.

 

Lotor--father, warrior, and future emperor--trembled.

 

He searched for my umbrella planted in the sand and met my ignorant gaze. I felt something like fear then and did not understand why. Fear was for dark places, for skin broken by blades or rocks, for loneliness at night, not for a father and son standing on the shores of sanctuary.

 

I wanted to cry. I must have cried. He ran up and grabbed me from beneath the umbrella and held me close to his chest as he strode toward the convalescence home, which sat at the base of the black mountains. The only sounds were the susurration of waves behind us and the soft fracture of dry grass beneath his feet.

 

I felt his heart pounding beneath mine.

 

“Ira?”

 

I jump at the voice. Turning from the cool, humming twilight beyond the veranda deck, I meet a blue gaze that shines with reflected torch light.

 

“Queen Commander,” I say in slurred Altean, bowing quickly. “I apologize. I wasn’t notified that you had arrived.”

 

When I right myself, Allura is grinning at me, a thin white brow arched high as she looks me over. “Don’t fret. I let myself in. Have you grown since the solstice party?”  
  
I huff a laugh, posture melting under the warmth of my former tutor. “Perhaps. I haven’t measured.”

 

“I believe you have. Your father must be livid about it.”

 

“I assure you,” I say, slipping into Galran. “I’ve been this tall long enough for him to find other reasons to be pissed off at me.”

 

Her laughter is like lightning in the evening air.

 

Allura, true to form, is a vision in deep metallic pink. Her dress is cut sharp and high across her collarbones, form fitting and long sleeved, and the silhouette is modest but for the accentuation of her long, bare neck. Equally sleek, her hair is pulled back into a high tail from where it cascades down her back in white ripples. Her face is harder now than it once was, though always beautiful; years of war and politicking have chiseled away at her cheekbones and the hollows of her eyes so that the softness of the Princess is now complicated by the angles of the Queen. As a child, I met the leaders of the Voltron Coalition in their prime of youth and vigor, but whether or not time has treated us all well, it has left its decisive marks.  

 

“Come.” She links her arm through mine. “Shiro is in the dining room. We’ll keep him company ‘till the others arrive.”

 

Allura leads me through the sliding screen doors, their paper painted with symmetrical silhouettes of flowering branches, and into the empty heart of the house. We make our way to the dining room at the opposite end of the central hall.

 

Servants in rust-colored coats, layered and high-collared in the Xoterian style, step aside with curt bows and pass along. As we walk down the sparse, vaulted corridor, they ghost into adjacent rooms to open more screens and fiddle with the knobs on the outdated organoil lamps, which punctuate the white plaster walls with warm light. This many workers haven't graced the manor since my childhood, but they have been invited down from the nearby town for the occasion of a formal dinner. Some of the servants are of mixed Galra decent, their short, coarse fur varied shades of purple. Most Xoterians working this evening, however, bear the stark black and white facial markings and sweeping red horns that make them a striking people. I meet the white fringed eyes of one worker as they extinguish a stick lighter with a curt puff of air. The symmetrical markings on their face are like a butterfly of black ink spilled across their nose and cheekbones. They turn away without a word down the hall.

 

The chill acknowledgement is not unprecedented. During my father’s brief stint on Xoterion as an ambassador, he worked closely with Shel'che, the great island’s governor, and their council to neutralize the damage that had been done to both the moon and its people by the previous Galra commander stationed there. Zarkon hadn’t appreciated my father’s efforts to overwrite the mark of the Galra on Xoterion’s green and black marbled surface. Sending a battalion of his own troops, Zarkon had my father apprehended and Shel’che executed in the capital forum as a final exertion of his dominance before wiping his hands clean of the moon. 

 

It was not the way of the Empire to leave a conquered civilization untouched.

 

When Allura and I enter the dining room, the screens on the far side from us are already open, allowing the night breeze to light across the polished table and flirt with the flower arrangements, carrying their scent towards us: honey and the salt of the sea. Shiro stands on the threshold of the room and veranda, looking out into the night with hands clasped behind his back--one flesh, the other the bone white of Altean biotech. At the sight of the former Black Paladin, my ears flick back, but I shiver off the impolite reflex.

 

“Welcome, Captain Shirogane,” I say. He turns with the slightest start as though pinched awake.

 

He recovers quickly and crosses the room with all the fluidity and power expected of a high ranking soldier. Shiro is tall for a human, so I do not have to cast my gaze down at him, and the clean lines of his dark blue suit accentuate broad shoulders. Shoulder-length black hair, pinned up at the back of his head and streaked with white, softens a finely sculpted face. The weathering of dark scars, gray hair, and fine lines accenting warm eyes makes him appear older than my father, though this is hardly the case.

 

With a shallow bow, he replies in tight but grammatically perfect Galran, “Thank you, Prince Ira. Xoterion is a beautiful moon. It is a pleasure to finally visit.”

 

_Finally._

 

I smile.

 

“Of course,” I continue in English.

 

Though most Earth languages I have been exposed to are clumsy--with vocabularies better suited to erotica and poetry than to intergalactic relations--it’s customary to accommodate the humans present at small gatherings where translators aren't convenient. Five Earthlings helped to end a 10,000 year tyranny; we can't begrudge them their languages.

 

“You seem well,” I say, nodding towards his right side. “Is the update to your liking?”

 

Shiro blinks a couple times then lifts his metal palm to inspect. He flexes his fingers and as he clenches his fist, lines of blue light glow faintly brighter in the imperceptible seams between the plates of his fingers and forearm. “It's lighter, for sure. And it fits well. Pidge has a real knack for biotech.”

 

“Seems like it.”

 

Shiro’s sea-gray eyes wander, searching for another thread to hold. “I hear construction on Feyiv has ended. An impressive engineering feat from the blueprints I've seen.”

 

“Yes, the palace is certainly something, if a bit too utilitarian to be called a ‘palace.’ It’s unfortunate that the Emperor and I had business to attend to here before the Arusian Summit, otherwise, we could have all met in a windowless conference hall. You’d get to see it first hand.”

 

Shiro laughs, the sound practiced but charming. “A real shame.”

 

With that, I’m happy to meet my quota of good humor this early in the evening. Shiro is, essentially, likeable. Had circumstances been different, we might have even been friendly by now, and I’m reminded of this when we interact in the vacuum of my father’s presence.

 

Allura moves past me to take a crystal flute of green _tso-a_ , a local liquor made of grain and wildflowers, from the arrangement of glasses standing on one end of the dining table. She sips then looks between Shiro and me as silence settles like a frost.

 

Just as the Captain is parting his lips to cut through the quiet, Allura intervenes with: “Where is Emperor Lotor?”

 

Shiro’s relieved exhale doesn’t escape my notice.

 

“My father may not be joining us this evening,” I say, the appropriate balance of remorse and annoyance in my voice to hide the deeply personal truth of the matter. “He received a report that required his immediate attention, so he said to please excuse him until morning.”

 

“Ah,” Allura says. She holds my gaze, studying. When I think she might press further, she turns to grab Shiro a drink of his own.

 

Fortunately, Kolivan arrives shortly thereafter, saving me from attempting further small talk. By nature, he is brusque but polite and more than capable of making conversation when diplomacy demands it. I am thankful when his familiar uniformed figure rounds the corner on the heels of servers who are trickling inside to place platters of fragrant Xoterian fare on the table.

 

I excuse myself from Allura and Shiro and meet Kolivan on the other side of the room. We clasp forearms in greeting.

 

“Kolivan. I'm so happy you could join us.”

 

“Likewise, your Highness,” he says, only the bright eyes of his otherwise stoic face suggesting the pleasure is reciprocated. “Or should I say, Vice Minister?”

 

We part, and I narrow my eyes at him in mock scrutiny. “So Blade central command has heard?”

 

“We do specialize in intelligence gathering,” he says. “And Keith thought it would be amusing to tack up the press release in the commons at Central.”

 

“Shit,” I say, rubbing my hot face with a hand. “That’s mortifying.”

 

The press release in question was published to commemorate the beginning of the Empire’s transition into a representative government via the establishment of the _Içtimazj,_ the Galra senate, and while the intention was sound, the choice to include a photograph of me standing full of youthful vigor beside a dour and war-worn Minister Thace had been something of a creative misstep.

 

“More at Thace’s expense than yours, I assure you,” Kolivan says to draw me out from behind my hand. “You cut an impressive figure for imperial propaganda, Prince Ira.”  

 

I laugh, and we’re at peace again.

 

Tilting my head to look over his shoulder toward the door, I find the space vacant and say, “You're here alone?”

 

He makes a rumbling, noncommittal noise then says, “Itzel could not join me. Her squadron was deployed for an ushering assignment and will remain on Arus for defense support.”

 

It was a relief to hear that my sister would be at the Summit even if she could not join us now, but I wondered how much I would see of her amid meetings and her own duties and when I would have the opportunity to speak to her alone. A few days ago, the prospect of seeing Itzel was a bright spot on an otherwise dreary week of tense debate and long nights combing through legal documents heavy enough to injure. Now, the thought of seeing my sister, of having to say the words aloud, _Our father is dying_ , makes my chest tighten.

 

As a new Blade of Marmora combatant fresh from training, Itzel is constantly on the move with grunt missions forgone by her superiors. Her squadron works as ancillary support for diplomats without bodyguards, carrier ships in need of protection from pirates, and other missions that--from her occasional, exasperated video comms--often amount to little more than standing around, smoking, and shit-talking their commanding officer.

 

Whatever her complaints of general boredom, whatever her desire to do more for our people than babysit politicians and guard freight, I know she has begun to make a life apart from my father and me, a life unblemished by the stain of the Imperial name. Itzel is a child of the post-war era, and I want this life of freedom and irreverence for her. I want her to be unbeholden to us, to our history. But if our family blood is anything, it is loyal to the ones we love.

 

The table has been set, and our guests and I convene around the chairs. I spare a glance toward my father’s empty seat before pulling out the chair to the right of where he would be. The others follow my lead, Kolivan across from me, Shiro to my right, and Allura at the opposite end.

 

“Shall we?” I say and begin to sit when the march of boot heels across hardwood pulls our attention toward the hall.

 

A figure clad in black and white strolls into the room. He stops at the head of the table. 

  
Freshly bathed and with hand bandaged, he is outfitted in a stark white coat, black trousers, and tall leather boots--his uniform for most public occasions. The monochromatic scheme belies traditional Galran aesthetics, my father having long ago traded the precious stone palette of Daibazaal for the colors of traditional Xoterian mourning attire.

 

Except for the flirtatious light of gold at his ears, he’s an image of austerity, more stone than flesh, but I wonder if the others can see in the muted organoil light the flush on his cheeks or the irritation around the rims of his eyes, the telling signs of emotional distress. Vargas had passed since our morning spat; he’d waited until I’d left to feel something.

 

“Forgive my lateness,” the Emperor says, boldly, in Galran.

 

Cornflower eyes sweep the room, but no one comments. He pulls out his chair to sit without further ceremony, and like seafoam, we follow in his wake.

 

The dinner descends on us in three courses: an array of seafood caught that morning in the bay and char-grilled flowers the size of a fist and harvested from the mountain. By the time dessert arrives--a glass bowl of flavored jelly pearls over which the servers pour dark tea--polite conversation has dwindled to whatever spare twigs can be gathered from the ground.

 

The weather on Xoterion is lovely. The local cuisine, divine.

 

Kolivan has hardly spoken since my father arrived. I am at the limitations of my aristocratic breeding to keep conversation both alive and light with only Allura as my ally. As more drinks are poured and the novelty of the dinner wears thin, we have all become increasingly aware of the reason for our convening. This not a party but preparation for battle.

 

“I suppose,” my father says, Galran accent texturing the edges of his English like the clinging grit of sand. “Now that I have you all fed and appropriately liquored, we should turn to the matters at hand.”

 

Our guests chuckle politely. My father takes another swig of _tso-a_ before sitting back in his chair. His eyes are bright and sharp, and I find him more than once sliding a pointed glance past my right shoulder. Shiro shifts in his seat.

 

“My chief concern as we approach the Summit,” Lotor says. “Is the instability of the present Galran military complex. The last--” He pauses, brows drawing together. “Forgive me, the last _Içtimazj_ assembly established significant cuts to our budget and manpower. All based, of course, upon prior recommendations from the Coalition. It behooves us to determine with certainty--before demonstrating the Empire’s demilitarization to our esteemed new allies--that we are still, in fact, secure.”

 

“Wait,” Shiro says, looking back and forth between Allura and my father. “Lotor, demilitarization of the Galra Empire has been publically established since the Convention. What do you mean ‘sec--?’”

 

“Kolivan?” Lotor says, unmoved.

 

“Yes, _Kisaria_ ,” Kolivan says. “I have spoken with Matriarch Ira, and she and her fellow _Mavatrai_ are in agreement that under the present reign, a restructuring of the Blade of Marmora could be arranged to the benefit of all parties.”

 

“A relief.” My father’s voice softens as it tends to when speaking of my grandmother and namesake.

 

Uncommon knowledge even--or perhaps especially--among Galra, the Blade of Marmora began as the infant combat sector of an intergalactic rebel organization called the Order.

 

Founded at the dawn of Emperor Zarkon’s campaign of revenge against the first generation Paladins and their allies, the Order arose from the compassion and cunning of one Commander Marmora, the former First in Command of Zarkon’s predecessor, Empress Zora. Zarkon's rise against the Paladins precipitated not only the fall of Altea but the swift devolution of Galra civilization, first with the execution of Galra civilians who refused to raise arms against their Altean neighbors and then, as the war progressed, the empowerment of military officials who used the chaos of the state to murder their comrades, subjecting the families of the slain to the worst of violence and exploitation an unprotected civilian could endure. Having borne witness to these casualties of Zarkon's rampage, Marmora and her allies among the vestiges of Zora's high command developed a network to relocate and protect refugees of the rising totalitarian empire.

 

As the population of Marmora’s network grew, expanding to include not only pockets of refugees scattered about the galaxy but also spies within Zarkon’s army, the ragtag group of soldiers first gathered by Marmora grew and coalesced into the Order. The Order was overseen by the Mavatrai, a council of women that was led by Marmora until her death about four thousand decapheobs ago. Inducted into the contemporary generation of Mavatrai near the end of the war, after having served the majority of her military career as a spy within Zarkon’s inner circle, was my grandmother, Commander Sendak Ira.

 

Kolivan speaks. “It is a new era and a new Empire. The Mavatrai expressed that _Kisariati_ Ira’s recent appointment in the Senate soothed some of their previous concerns.”

 

With a smirk, my father takes another drink. “Better to give your men to the enemy you know than the one you do not.”

 

I can’t withhold an eye roll at the graceless jab.

 

From the opposite end of the table, Allura sniffs. With a glance, I catch the way her eyes narrow at Lotor, appraising, and beside her Shiro sits rigid as frustration shivers in the strong line of his jaw. My father’s strange behavior this evening has not been lost on either of them; though never one to be an outright ass in public spheres, he had been just shy of belligerent since his belated arrival. The evening air is colored with the pressure of an oncoming storm.

 

Kolivan, however, handles all in graceful stride. “Better to have an ally within than without, Kisaria.”

 

“Is it true then?” Allura speaks, her gaze unwavering as tempered glass. “The Blade of Marmora will no longer be an independent agency.”

 

“We have never been independent, Queen Commander,” Kolivan says. “Only agents of another master and mission. We were born from rebellion against tyranny, but we have always been Galra. It is our duty to protect our people, and that once meant to protect them from themselves. No longer is this the case.”

 

“Convenient,” Shiro says.

 

“Timely.” Lotor rests an elbow on the table, chin in hand. “An unaffiliated paramilitary organization running around the galaxies would surely ruffle some feathers. No matter what side of the war one was on, Galra military personnel do not have the benefit of blind trust your little lion troupe once boasted.”

 

Shiro’s tech hand grasps the edge of the table, the wood creaking faintly under his fingers. “That’s not at all the sa--”

 

“The primary concern that will arise,” I interject with the metallic clack of my spoon onto crystal-ware, “once the alliance between the Empire and Blades is made public knowledge, is this: to what end we will be employing a military organization? We have maintained only the numbers and weaponry necessary for basic protection. Now that conquest is no longer the Empire’s modus operandi, any extraneous personnel is likely to be suspect, no matter who they are.”

 

Folding of her hands on the table, Allura is the first to recover from my sudden takeover. “You say this, Ira, as though this is not truly a cause for concern.”

 

“It won’t be,” I press on. “Not one _Içtimata_ argued against the assimilation of the Blade of Marmora, and the majority of them are from the Colonies. There is precedent for our government officials to require protection, and the Blades will be such protection.”

 

To my left, a clatter punctuates my statement. My father has dropped his silverware, and one hand hangs suspended over his dessert. The others watch us carefully, silent, all aware of the “precedent” in question. It is a dark thing that slithers under the surface of the present moment, trailing the scent of midnight and laser fire.

 

It passes. The lamplight grows warm again, my father places his palms down flat on the table, and he speaks.

 

“Warfare is in Galra blood. My father, his mother, and the Zendakhai line before them were first and foremost warrior kings. But we have made our bed and must now lie in it. We have no intention of resurrecting our army.”

 

“Intention.” Shiro smiles, shaking his head. “The stakes are too high for good intentions, Lotor. You know better.”

 

“Of course, Shiro,” Lotor says. “I know better than some not to speak well yet behave badly.”

 

Shiro’s face falls. They hold eye contact for a moment, neither man bending to the other. The silence in the dining room strains taught between them, subtly vibrating and potentially violent. Lotor’s fist clenches where it rests on the table, and for a moment I see that hand as it once strained, knuckles cracking, while gripping the Black Paladin’s throat.

 

_“Lotor--”_

 

I take a deep breath.

 

“ _Your son--”_

 

“My father speaks the truth,” I say.

 

Their locked glare snaps like bone and shifts to me.

 

“We have neither the manpower nor the money to support an army again, Captain, even with the Blade on our side. Besides--” I pause as I see my father’s fist unfold, fingers faintly trembling “--everyone is more concerned about the economic stability of the annexed systems than what scant fire power we have now.”

 

“Economic stability?” Allura says.

 

Lotor sighs. “ As in there is none. The Imperial treasury has been dealt a significant blow with the dissemination of reparations over the past decade. At the Summit, we’re establishing a new budget that will factor in the vote.”

 

Servants have begun to trickle back in from the hall, clearing the dessert dishes and refilling glasses of water and _tso-a,_ and I recognize the person with the butterfly markings as they clean the table in front of Kolivan.

 

“All annexed systems,” Lotor continues, “will be required to contribute representatives for the Senate through a mandated series of elections, parsed by sector. If they do not comply and provide a representative to secure their required funds, they will not be considered our financial responsibility. We haven’t the time or resources to allocate where reciprocal investment cannot be found.”

 

Shiro shifts beside me and relaxes back into his chair. “Seems a hard line to draw when they were the ones colonized to begin with. But if they agreed to annexation, why wouldn’t they cooperate?”

 

Kolivan speaks. “Many of the annexed peoples are skeptical of the concept of the vote. It is not in their vocabulary let alone political philosophy. They would just as well be assured consistent financial and military support from the Galra without sending one of their own to the halls of Feyiv.”

 

Kolivan fails to add that the vote is not only a point of contention among colonies but among the Içtimatai as well.

 

While majority populated with former rebels, scholars, and the ranked officers of Zarkon’s army who turned with grateful sighs away from combat and toward diplomacy, the Senate is still marred by Galran elitists. These few, the vocal and the violent, have made clear their distaste for welcoming foreign ambassadors into the Içtimazj, viewing the provision of more seats at our table as a threat to intergalactic order. Thace’s steady, decisive hand and the overwhelming consensus to move our civilization forward ensure these dissidents rarely gain the traction needed to move legislation in their favor. What skill they do possess, however, is the ability to appeal to the basest fear of the Galra people: _If we are not the apex then, who are we?_

 

“The anxiety about this new government is not unfounded,” my father says, toying with the gold hoop in his ear. “These systems know the rule of an empire. And we are still an empire, I would like to point out, not a, um--”

 

“Republic,” I say. “We may not yet be the Galra Republic, but that is in fact where we are heading.”

 

With a slow, predatory blink, Lotor tilts his head at me. Allura recaptures his attention.

 

“So in spite of all this--” Allura gestures with a slender, manicured hand “--pomp surrounding the Summit, you do not stand behind the proposed new government?”

 

“While I believe in respecting the differences and perspectives of all civilizations under the Empire, I do not necessarily trust the common people to know best who should rule them.”

 

From over his shoulder, the Xoterian lifts Lotor’s untouched dessert plate to add to the stack of crystalware accumulating on their arm. As I watch them, their lips pull into a tight line betraying what wound his Emperor’s words have cut. The Xoterian retires to the shadows of the hall, silent, alienated indefinitely from the table at which their life, and the lives of countless others, is being carved up and considered like a rack of meat.

 

A pressurized silence falls, and I feel our guests eyes on me, alert and searing like direct sunlight. Lotor says nothing for a moment, tracing the rim of his glass with a fingertip so that it sings.

 

I clear my throat. “Was there a question?”

 

Allura offers a smile to diffuse what must have been the visible tension in my posture.

 

“I suppose so, Ira. If the Coalition is to publicly back this accord--assimilation of the Blade of Marmora included--can we expect you and Minister Thace to see it through to the end? We cannot in good conscience move forward with any sort of legislative or financial support if all parties involved are not on board.”

 

“I am confident this is not only the best course of action but that all opposed can be convinced,” I say. Shiro and I snag gazes for a moment, but I shake him off.

 

“And if they will not be convinced?”

 

With a deep breath, I place my palms flat on the table. “They will, Queen Commander. We’ve come too far to relent in our progress. Failure is not an option.”

 

To my left, my father raises his glass in a toast. Light glints off the gold band hanging around his wrist; in another life and time, an evening on Olkarion, he had raised his glass just the same, the band had sparkled just the same, and from his painted lips the words had poured, _To peace._

 

The Emperor now inclines his head, and his eyes are clear, cold and cutting as Balmeran crystal.

 

“To triumph,” he says. “As is the way of the Galra.”

 

With a kiss to the crystal rim of his glass, he tilts back the sea-green liquor and drinks.

 

\----

 

Our small party disperses, Allura to the guest quarters for rest, Kolivan into the dim belly of the house, and my father to the veranda with Shiro on his boot heels.

 

I linger in the dining room as the remnants of our dinner are disappeared. Through the open screens, I can hear the murmuring of the two men on the deck, their voices low, indistinct but intense. Shiro’s voice, higher than Lotor’s, sounds agitated even in Galran. My ears swivel back to collect the details of my overheard parent tongue, but I only catch my father’s harsh laughter cutting off whatever Shiro had been trying to express.

 

I rise from my seat to leave, to retire after a day wearying beyond expectation, but the distinct growl of the phrase _prhitaovat ra_ stills me behind my chair.

 

_You seduce. You polarize. You lead astray._

 

With a frown, I ghost toward the screens to listen in on whatever conversation is warranting Shiro’s use of the word, divisive and seductive in its own ways.

 

Cognate with _prhitaokt,_ a homeworld word for “meat cleaver.”

 

When I find them standing by the veranda railing, faces obscured by deep shadow from the torchlight, a sudden spark illumines their profiles for a moment. An orange flame sways from Shiro’s fingers as Lotor leans into the fire with the tip of his cigarette. Perhaps only a trick of the light, Lotor’s eyelashes flutter up, and they lock gazes with their faces inches apart. With a couple puffs, Lotor pulls away again, and Shiro snaps closed his military-issued brass lighter.

 

“Do I now?” my father says, turning in the direction of the sea, his back to me and the house.

 

Shiro leans closer as he replaces his lighter inside the breast of his jacket. “Innocent has never been a good look on you.”

 

Lotor tilts his head a bit at that. I can imagine the grin tugging at his lips.

 

“You sound like my son,” he says.

 

I bristle just as Shiro raises a hand to rub at his face. Typical that my father would manage to insult us both in one blow.

 

“Lotor,” Shiro says, tone mellowed. “We both know you need more than Allura’s official approval of the Accords to see them survive past the Summit.”

 

“You mean I need the approval of the Black Paladin.” Lotor takes a long drag. “Is this a threat?”

 

Shiro pauses a moment, perhaps searching for the right word. Whatever his fluency in Galran, there is a difference between the speech of the military, of the prisons, and polite social discourse.

 

“A reminder,” he decides.

 

Lotor reflects Shiro’s lean into the dark air between them, and the ink of their silhouettes spill over each other.

 

“If seduction is what you accuse me of,” he says, “how, then, could I better seduce you to our side?”

 

Even in the half-light I can see how they drink each other. Two men on the veranda, their heads bowed together in shadow...something like a trap door in my stomach falls away, and I’m clutching the frame of the screen hard enough to dig motes into the dark wood.

 

“Is that not your son’s job to figure out?” Shiro says. “What I don’t understand is why you even want the Blade under your jurisdiction.”

 

Lotor pulls away to take another pull of his cigarette, and I can make out the glint of his teeth as he smiles above his fingers. “I’m a huge fan of Kolivan.”

 

Shaking his head, Shiro turns around to recline against the rail, arms folded and bionic fingers tapping on his bicep. “You’re not doing yourself any favors by being an ass. If you didn’t want my opinion on these accord proposals then you could have foregone the invitation.”

 

Lotor laughs. “I didn’t invite you for your opinion, love.”

 

Shiro frowns at him.

 

“I invited you,” Lotor continues, “because I hoped for the entertainment of a brawl between you and Kolivan over your boy’s _honor_.”

 

“Fuck you,” Shiro says in English, pushing off the rail. He moves like he means to leave, but he pauses, caught in my father’s web.

 

“Don’t be rude,” Lotor says. “I meant it as a compliment. Your penchant for chivalry is adorable, if misguided.”

 

“You're a cunt.”

 

“I've been accused of worse and falsely.”

 

His opposition seemingly impenetrable by typical means of antagonism, Shiro reevaluates his tactics: “I want to help you with this, Lotor, but you have to let me.”

 

Lotor stamps out his cigarette on the rail, a few deliberate twists of the fingers, then straightens to his full height in front of Shiro. “And when, exactly, did I ask for your help?”

 

“Lo--”

“No,” he says. “I want you to listen to me, Shiro. Listen as you have never been in the habit of listening. This--you, here, on my soil--is a formality. I want nothing from you but your silence and unwavering support of whatever I wish to do with my empire come the Arusian Summit.”

 

“I’m not going to follow you blindly.”

 

“I am not asking you to follow me. I am telling you, for once, to stay the fuck out of the affairs of my family and my people.”

 

Shiro stares at him. “The Summit, these accords, are about the future of those people, Lotor. Don’t make this about _him_.”

 

Running his tongue over his teeth, Lotor appears ready to lunge for the throat, but he’s interrupted by the shadow of another figure crossing the veranda.

 

“Pardon my interruption, Kisaria,” Kolivan says, invisible from my perspective behind the screens.

 

Lotor and Shiro step back from each other, the bomb fuse momentarily extinguished.

 

“No interruption,” Lotor says with a smile, all teeth.

 

Kolivan steps into view, within the triangle of torch light Lotor and Shiro had moments before occupied as a single, dark body. The tense horizon of his wide shoulders suggests he is aware of what he had, in fact, interrupted.

 

“May I request a private audience, sir?” he says.

 

Shiro passes a glance to Lotor with a scowl reading, _We’re not finished here._

 

Lotor returns the look with half-lidded eyes. _Yes, we are._

 

“Of course, Kolivan,” he says. “Shiro and I can resume our conversation later in my study.”

 

With a roll of his jaw, Shiro severs eye contact with my father. He dons a steel mask of civility and gives Kolivan a nod before retreating out of view. Expression illegible in half shadow, my father watches him go.

 

“What is this about, Kolivan?” he says.

 

“Sir, we have on board our ship certain assets that will be of interest to you,” Kolivan says. “If you’ll accompany me to the landing deck, you may see them for yourself and decide the appropriate course of action.”

 

Lotor’s eyes narrow. 

 

“Ira,” he says.

 

The name pierces through me like a cold needle, and my claws scrape down the door frame’s varnish with a sudden full-body clench. He can’t see me from this angle, turned fully toward Kolivan, but he looks over his shoulder with an even expression as he meets my widened eyes.

 

“Care to join us for an evening stroll, darling?” he says, raising his voice to be sure I can hear him, to be sure I know I’ve been caught.

 

I step out onto the veranda, and Kolivan looks my way with raised brows.

 

“How did you--?” I say.

 

“Do you think I can’t smell my own son when he’s two meters away from me?”

 

My face burns.

 

Kolivan addresses my father. “Sir, it may be best if it is only you and I who return to the ship. There may be complications--”

 

“My son may very well be Kisaria one day.” He meets my eyes, his expression severe, scrutinizing, before turning back to Kolivan. “Whatever you deem necessary for me to see, he should as well.”

 

“With all due respect,” Kolivan says. “Prince Ira is also a leader of the Republic. There may be a conflict of interest.”

 

My father goes quiet. A breeze rushes up from the sea across the plane, rustling our coats and coaxing us like a spirit of war into action.

 

“He joins us as Kisariati,” Lotor says, but he doesn't look at me. “This is an Imperial matter.”

 

Kolivan looks at me then between the two of us, but he replies only with a deep breath and a nod, knowing well what fights are best left uninstigated. He moves toward the veranda steps, toward the edge of the torchlight where the milk of night pours silver and dark over the grass.

 

My father follows him, and I follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was much more delayed than anticipated (and cropped short to make it more digestible), but I hope you enjoyed! Please feel free to leave comments about your criticisms, confusions, and anything you liked. This fic is exercising a lot of new and long-unused muscles, so feedback is always appreciated~
> 
> Also keep an eye out for the next TLE update; Chapter 3 promises to be...spicy.


	3. Wine-dark

The hike into the mountain toward the landing pad is steep and cold.

Narrow and overcrowded with foliage, the trail hugs the sheer face of the black hills, and from below, great trees rise through the fog to tower over our path. Their pale branches drip with the husks of flowers gone to fruit like strings of freshwater pearls. The polygonal shells of the fruiting flowers are so structured that when the wind blows through them, they sing. As the season wanes into the Xoterian summer, and the fruit inside swells and ripens, the holes in the shells are obstructed, increasing the pitch of the singing to a shrill whistle like birdsong. Now, early in the spring, the shells are hollow, open, and their song carries through the mountain as the low hum of a dirge.

My father’s silver figure strides in front of me, and I trace his steps for the safest path.

We don’t speak. Moonlight bears down on us through the lace of tree branches like gauze on a wound. Ahead, Kolivan presses onward, his hood and mask drawn. He glances back to be sure we are still close behind, and the bright disks of his lenses glow in the darkness with the reflective gaze of a night creature.

Hooking a left at a fork in the path, he disappears into the black flora, but it takes only a moment of searching to hone in on him through the trees. My father and I catch up to him, and we stumble into a level clearing, the reflective stripes of the landing pad glowing beneath our boots and the gleaming body of a fighter ship.

As Kolivan patches in his crew to allow us entry, I come to my father’s side, infiltrating the barrier projected by his ramrod, crossed-arm posture.

“What was that about?” I say.

His gaze remains trained on Kolivan and the ship. “What do you mean?”

“You and Captain Shirogane.”

“Old friends can't have a smoke?”

“I wasn't aware you two were friends.”

“Old friends, darling.”

“You were the only one smoking.”

He takes a deep breath, still staring forward. “Is there something you would like to say to me, Ira?”

Kolivan turns then and gestures for us to come toward the ship.

“I have a lot of things I'd like to say to you, Vatra, but now isn't really the time, is it?”

I start toward Kolivan but my father grabs me by the elbow. I look at him expecting to see admonition but instead find the soft lines of worry.

“Do you want to go onto that ship?”

The question blindsides me, and I can only stare at him.

“We may board now, sir,” Kolivan calls out across the dark sea of the landing pad.

I shake off my father’s hold and cross the landing pad. His stare, hot on the back of my neck, feels like a challenge to hesitate, to show any sign of weakness in the unintelligible face of whatever awaits us onboard. I don't give him the satisfaction of justified concern. The belly of the ship opens its mouth for us as we approach, and we are doused with an outpouring of light.

A dream or a memory: a child wakes to flame crawling up the walls of his bedroom.

Even at the heart of this cocoon of fire, the room is dark, the boundaries of his bed, the walls, and the door leagues away all bleeding into each other. He extricates himself from messy sheets, dangles off the side of the bed until his feet find solid ground because he can’t be sure that the floor hasn't melted to abyss. He bolts toward the door and out into the vaulted maw of the hallway.

Fire climbs from the perimeter of the glossy floor, traveling down the hall in a twin swell along the walls. Cries echo from the far end of the corridor, from the direction of his parents’ room. The child runs toward the screams, the fire racing just ahead of him and illuminating his path, but he is sure the fire has already reached them, has transformed his parents’ bed into a pyre.

Finally, he reaches the towering double doors of his parents’ suite where the faintest light trickles through the crack between doors just ajar. He's sure, then, that the room is on fire, but he pushes the doors open anyway.

Inside, they're backwards on the bed, one on his back and the other astride him. The cries emanate from the child’s father as he moves atop his husband, but the contortion of his face does not read as pain or fear but something incomprehensible, exalted by the sheen of sweat on his skin that catches firelight and makes him glow.

His father's eyes open. Finding the child’s confused stare, he loses balance, forced to grip tight the shoulders of his lover as he chokes on his child’s name.

_Ira!_

I come to as if doused with cold water.

I'm leaning against the wall by the entrance to the holding cell with no memory of how I arrived here, nothing of the logical path of entering Kolivan’s ship, following him along narrow corridors to its heart, and arriving at this sterile holding room.

To my right, Kolivan stands in front of a row of masked Marmora operatives, his unobscured face pensive and his hands clasped behind his back.

Facing us, two Galra sit strapped to squat, metal seats that emerge from a floor smooth and bright as liquid mercury beneath the violent white eyes of overhead lighting, deliberately severe for interrogation. The captives appear to be men. The one on the right, no older than my sister with a dark and unruly mohawk growing between downturned ears and a complexion sickly glossed with sweat, glances at his companion whose aquiline face is fractured with layers of natural markings, pale scarring, and lines of aging that suggest he could be as old as my grandmother.

Their social statuses and military rank are indistinguishable by their unfamiliar armor of rust tones and black--no, not wholly unfamiliar, but why?--but the way in which the youth looks from the other to my father, who stands centered before the pair of them, reveals a chasm of training and field experience proportional to a general and his unranked ward. A child fresh from Academy caught in the wrong mission at the wrong time.

As if my scrutiny had sent out a flare, the youth’s flat eyes shift from my father to stare past him and directly at me. The cold terror embedded in that gaze embarrasses me. I avert my attention to my father’s back for an anchor.

“I recognize you,” comes the Emperor’s voice, deep and too loud for a room holding its breath.

I've entered in the middle of a conversation, I sense, and as the ticks pass, the glass-like layers of disorientation that separate me from the scene begin to peel away to expose some raw thing underneath. I press back against the wall behind me, splaying my hands across the cold, smooth surface as reminder of the physical, the irrefutable.

My father steps closer to the senior soldier, bending a bit to bring their eyes level. He lifts a hand to his face and says, “You gave me this.”

The scar across his mouth. The wall at my back is melting, my palms sweat-slick against it.

Straightening to his full height, my father turns toward Kolivan, glancing at the captive askance.

“But I see your tail is missing now,” he says. “Kolivan?”

“It was docked for precautionary purposes,” Kolivan says, voice steady and betraying nothing. Docking is an archaic old-empire custom for military personnel, one to which the Order has never adhered.

“Just as well,” my father says. “Do you plan on further interrogation of these two?”

Kolivan doesn't answer immediately. Statues breathed to life by the ambient tension, the operatives behind him shift in their line. My father doesn't break eye contact with their commanding officer.

“No, sir,” Kolivan says, a touch of breath to his words, a futility.

The Emperor smiles. “Good.”

Gliding past Kolivan to the row of subordinates, he heads to one soldier in particular, the shortest of the queue by about a head. He smiles at the soldier and holds out a hand.

“Your blade, thank you,” he says. The soldier takes the slightest step back.

Kolivan turns to my father with a furrowed brow. “Sir, that isn’t necessary--”

My father doesn’t acknowledge him. “Your blade, soldier.”

The air crackles between the three of them until Kolivan gives the operative a terse nod. The soldier unsheathes the knife from the holster at their waist and places it in my father’s palm. The Emperor doesn’t thank him a second time; no praise for noncompliance.

Instead, he turns his attention back to the captives, strolling toward them as he fingers the knife in his hands, and says to the older of the two, “Do you know where we are, soldier?”

No response.

“We’re currently docked on a moon called Xoterion.”

“Sire, I would advise--” Kolivan starts.

He whips around to the commander. “You are finished with your interrogation, are you not? Or did I misunderstand you?”

Kolivan’s jaw snaps shut. His hands clench and wring each other behind his back. I can’t look at him much longer, but everywhere my attention lands is volatile: the sweat dripping from the young captive’s face, the polished knife glinting in my father’s hands as he turns it over and over and over.

I can smell the blood before I see it; the future unfolds in my mind then plays out in halftime.

“Xoterion.” He stalks closer to the youth, eyes still on the superior as he speaks. “It means ‘salvation.’”

I'm the child in the doorway, and my father beckons me, _It’s alright, darling_.

“Please don't,” the young soldier says, writhing in his restraints.

I'm the child curled in a corner as shadows of carnage dance over me. Blood flies from his sword, a rain shower warm on my cheeks.

_Did you have a bad dream?_

My father comes to stand behind the youth. He grabs his head by the crest of black hair and gripping the knife handle in his fist, jabs the blade deep into the boy’s neck just beneath his jaw. With a sound like wet sheets tearing, he pulls the blade from ear to ear below the boy’s trembling chin.

I’m not Ira.

Black blood pours from the smile of flesh, spills over the breastplate of his armor and into his lap as he gasps, convulsing against the cuffs at his wrists and ankles. Drowning.

_Don't cry._

My father steps away, watching the life leak from the boy the way he watches the sea.

I'm not even here.

“Xoterians eat primarily fish and vegetation,” he says. “Difficult diet for the Galra metabolism, of course. But they do eat a certain type of wild boar. A sacred animal, culled only for religious festivals and political events.”

Turning the blade in his hands, he looks at his reflection in the soiled metal. “Weddings. To prepare the boar for consumption, they bleed it first. By the throat.”

Blood drips from the soldier’s seat onto the floor. Head drooping forward, the youth’s face is ashen and his mouth opens and closes for air as though beached in a hostile atmosphere. He stills with a gurgle.

Coming to stand before the senior soldier, Lotor steps through the growing puddle. His arms drop to his sides, blade clenched in one hand.

When the soldier looks up at him and speaks, his voice tumbles through his teeth like gravel. “Is this the message I take?”

“No message,” Lotor says. “I am not interested in negotiating with vermin.”

The soldier laughs. “We are not the vermin, xeohreta.”

_Crown-whore_. A slur I hadn't heard in decades, often slung out of ear shot by the Emperor’s rivals. A denunciation of his war-ending marriage. Lotor's hands shake. He steps closer.

“You and the rest of your kind will answer for your treason.”

“It is no treason to defy a false emperor.” The captive spits at Lotor's boots. He doesn't flinch.

Bending to lean into the soldier’s face, one hand clutching the back of the chair to entrap him, Lotor's lips nearly brush the soldier’s. “You, the Makharai, murdered the man you called ‘Emperor.’”

The soldier stares ahead, then, for a moment, his eyes shift, and we lock gazes. “You're mistaken,” he says. “The Emperor lives.”

Lotor jerks back as though scalded.

“Vatra, don't--” The words are a husk when they come. My throat, my body knows before my mind not to tie too much of myself to them.

The blade enters the soldier’s stomach. I'm aware that he's screaming, but I don't hear it so much as feel the cries reverberating from the walls. Lotor guts him like game, a steady sawing across the soldier’s torso. His body opens, spills ichor and the perfume of a butcher’s shop. He passes out from shock before a coil of intestine drops into his lap.

Lotor turns to us, face blank beneath the decoration of blood splatter. Ivory coat already painted in gore, he wipes the blade of the knife on his sleeve. The captives’ blood mixes, iridescent, at his feet.

“I apologize for the mess,” he says.

As he approaches the operative to whom the knife belonged, Lotor says to Kolivan, “They were never here.”

“Of course, sir.” Kolivan doesn't look at him.

“Return them to where you found them. Let traitors dispose of their dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lotor comes to stand before the small operative and offers the knife. As the soldier reaches for it, the Emperor leans in and my ears flicker to catch him murmur, “Shiro sends his regards.”

The soldier snatches the knife and flinches back, falling still. With a grin, Lotor pulls away and approaches the door.

“Come, darling,” he says. “We’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

“They--” I choke on the words.

He pauses to look at me, eyes tired, expression of a father listening to his child prattle, incongruous to the gore coating him and left in his wake.

“Yes?” he says.

My eyes slide toward the captives, but I can’t look at them too long and return to studying the floor. The smell is enough to overwhelm without the visual.

“They were protected under our banner as prisoners of war,” I say, measuring each syllable.

“Oh, darling.” He places a hand on my shoulder. I look up from my boots to meet his eyes. They are flat, the blue of a cloudless sky.

“Didn’t you hear?” he says. “The war is over.”

The door slides with a whisper as he passes me and leaves, but I can’t move to follow.

A cold sweat seeps out of me as though every pore had been clenched and finally released. I sink down the wall until my ass hits the floor, and the bodies fill my line of vision. Kolivan is speaking to his soldiers, but I don’t understand him. His words are swallowed by a sound like waves, the loud thrum of blood in my ears.

I think: w _hat were their names._

I think: _what is my father_.

The dark pool expands, a hole swallowing the room from its center. 


End file.
